Editing Hathor (section)

===Music, dance, and joy===

[[File:Funerary banquet of Nebamun.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.8|alt=Painting of elaborately dressed men and women. Some women clap and play flutes while others dance.|Banquet scene from the tomb chapel of [[Nebamun]], 14th century BC. Its imagery of music and dancing alludes to Hathor.{{sfn|Harrington|2016|pp=132–134}}]]

Egyptian religion celebrated the sensory pleasures of life, believed to be among the gods' gifts to humanity. Egyptians ate, drank, danced, and played music at their religious festivals. They perfumed the air with flowers and [[incense]]. Many of Hathor's epithets link her to celebration; she is called the mistress of music, dance, garlands, [[myrrh]], and [[drunkenness]]. In hymns and temple reliefs, musicians play [[tambourine]]s, [[harp]]s, [[lyre]]s, and [[sistra]] in Hathor's honor.{{sfn|Finnestad|1999|pp=113–115}} The [[sistrum]], a rattle-like instrument, was particularly important in Hathor's worship. Sistra had erotic connotations and, by extension, alluded to the creation of new life.{{sfn|Manniche|2010|pp=13–14, 16–17}}

These aspects of Hathor were linked with the myth of the Eye of Ra. The Eye was pacified by beer in the story of the Destruction of Mankind. In some versions of the Distant Goddess myth, the wandering Eye's wildness abated when she was appeased with products of civilization like music, dance, and wine. The water of the annual [[flooding of the Nile]], colored red by sediment, was likened to wine, and to the red-dyed beer in the Destruction of Mankind. Festivals during the inundation therefore incorporated drink, music, and dance as a way to appease the returning goddess.{{sfn|Poo|2009|pp=153–157}} A text from the [[Temple of Edfu]] says of Hathor, "the gods play the sistrum for her, the goddesses dance for her to dispel her bad temper."{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|p=57}} A hymn to the goddess [[Raet-Tawy]] as a form of Hathor at the temple of [[Medamud]] describes the [[Festival of Drunkenness]] (Tekh Festival) as part of her mythic return to Egypt.{{sfn|Darnell|1995|p=48}} Women carry bouquets of flowers, drunken revelers play drums, and people and animals from foreign lands dance for her as she enters the temple's festival booth. The noise of the celebration drives away hostile powers and ensures the goddess will remain in her joyful form as she awaits the male god of the temple, her mythological consort [[Montu]], whose son she will bear.{{sfn|Darnell|1995|pp=54, 62, 91–94}}